Drawing upon decades of experience, RAND provides research services, systematic analysis, and innovative thinking to a global clientele that includes government agencies, foundations, and private-sector firms.

The Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS.edu) is the largest public policy Ph.D. program in the nation and the only program based at an independent public policy research organization—the RAND Corporation.

Minority Students

Minority students—those who do not belong to a region's or nation's majority racial or ethnic group—may be subject to discrimination, whether sanctioned or passive, that can affect their educational achievement. RAND has examined minority student test scores, English fluency among U.S. minorities, and the mental health of minority students and its effects on academic success.

A multiyear effort aimed at increasing students' access to effective teaching failed to achieve its goals for improved student achievement and graduation. However, the participating school districts and charter management organizations did implement better measures of teaching effectiveness.

A recent RAND report focuses on estimates of the impact of restorative practices on comprehensive outcome measures for all students. The report defines these measures in seven outcome domains and leads with the impact on suspensions. It estimates the impact on 50 secondary measures and on the seven primary measures for numerous student subgroups defined by race, income, special needs and English language learner status.

This study of Pittsburgh Public Schools' implementation of restorative practices represents one of the first randomized controlled trials of the effects of restorative practices on classroom and school climates and suspension rates.

The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative enhanced how teachers are evaluated and improved teacher staffing policies. But it did not lead to gains in student achievement or graduation rates.

In the United States, black and poor students are suspended at much higher rates than their white and non-poor peers. While the existence of these disparities is not controversial, how to interpret the disparities is bitterly disputed.

Schools implementing personalized learning were pursuing a wide variety of approaches and students closed achievement gaps relative to national norms. Observed challenges to implementation lead to recommendations for implementers.

Personalized learning focuses on meeting students' individual needs while incorporating their interests and preferences. What does this look like in schools that have implemented personalized learning schoolwide?

David Wang's commitment to giving minorities and other underrepresented groups a foothold on opportunity drives his support of Pardee RAND. His gift of $500,000 has allowed the school to provide diversity scholarships and expand its diversity initiatives.

Building relationships between educators and parents of migrant children in the EU, and dedicating more resources to schools with a high concentration of migrants, may help redress disparities in educational outcomes.

This brief summarizes a RAND Corporation evaluation of the implementation of key reform elements of the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching in three public school districts and four charter management organizations.

Young children can understand concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and early development of STEM skills seems to support learning later in life. But an effective teaching system is needed before STEM learning can be fully integrated into early childhood education.

This report attends to the distribution of effective teachers between low-income minority (LIM) and other students in Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching sites and what might explain changes in LIM students' access to effective teaching.

This brief summarizes a RAND Corporation evaluation of the effectiveness of key reforms of the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching for low-income minority students in three public school districts and a charter management organization.

Analysis of Pennsylvania public school student performance showed significant achievement gaps for subgroups defined by race-ethnicity and family economic status. Closing these gaps would produce considerable economic benefits.

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Policy Analyst

Christopher Young is a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. He has expertise in project planning and administration, survey management, and qualitative data collection. Prior to joining RAND, Young worked as a research assistant at Claremont Graduate University where he helped coordinate…

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